​Keep up with Galveston Art League online as well as in person

  
Galveston Art League has been promoting visual arts and art education for more than 106 years, but the nonprofit organization is also firmly rooted in the present – reaching out by various electronic means in today’s hyper-connected world. 
Currently its website, www.GalvestonArtLeague.com, has a show of its members’ art that was offered for sale starting Dec. 4. This includes three dozen small artworks that are part of a special December Holiday Art Sale, with nothing larger than 1 foot and all costing $75 or less. These works are available to see physically in the Art League Gallery, 2117A Postoffice St. in downtown Galveston (hours: noon-6,
Fridays-Sundays), as well as online. Galveston Art League has a Facebook page that’s regularly updated with details about current shows, artists, and events. League members benefit from learning about area art opportunities such as competitions and classes both via weekly email blasts and via the Art League’s quarterly electronic newsletter The NewsBrush. The league’s regularly updated website, www.GalvestonArtLeague.com, has information about memberships (general memberships start at $40 a year, with non-artists and artists encouraged to join) and about activities such as league-sponsored workshops, juried shows, and show previews.  The website began doing online sales midway through 2020 in response to the pandemic, when people were coping with lockdowns as well as nervousness about going anywhere nonessential. Foot traffic into the physical gallery, decreased, of course, so the Art League ramped up 24/7 online selling. Homepage links take shoppers to photos of artworks in the current show and two past shows; each show stays on exhibit for about a month in the physical gallery but three months online.  Underneath each online photo of the artworks are nuts-and-bolts information: the artist’s name, the artwork’s title, the medium, the size, and the price. All 2-D works (oils, acrylics, watercolor, pastels, mixed media, photography) are ready to hang — most are framed, although some are canvases
wrapped around frames. Easy credit-card checkout is offered online, but you may call 940-222-1958 to set up a different form of payment. Local deliveries and curbside pickup are available; online buyers also can opt to pay to have an item shipped to them.  In 2021 the Art League hopes to improve the online shopping experience with an upgraded website at
its same ol’, easy-to-remember internet address. The league encourages art lovers to check in occasionally to see and click around the old website right now and the new website once it debuts. If you have a question about the league, an all-volunteer organization that has never had a salaried employee on staff, or if you would like to know more about members’ art or gallery exhibits, please email gallery2117@gmail.com or call 940-222-1958.
The league’s budget is funded by membership and exhibit fees, direct contributions, gallery sales, and fundraisers. The Art League usually holds a fall gala, but because of the pandemic, this dinner-drinks-auctions-live music fundraiser is not being held during 2020.  Please contact the Art League if you’d like to support the region’s art community through this well-established and highly respected nonprofit organization.